Two roofers. Twenty-plus years each. One rubric.
We are Mark Thomas and Bradley Miller. We have each spent more than twenty years on roofs in and around Memphis, and for the better part of two decades we ran a roofing company together in the Mid-South. We started this site because we kept buying measurement tools on a salesman's word and finding out on the invoice which ones were actually worth it.
The red jacket. Hail claims, wind claims, adjusters, supplements. If the report does not open in Xactimate® and hold up line by line, it does not exist.
The blue vest. Kitchen tables, fast bids, signed proposals. If a tool is not saving a ladder trip or closing a job faster, he is not paying for it.
Mark Thomas (the red jacket)
Mark started tearing off roofs the summer he turned nineteen and never really came down. Twenty-plus years later he has walked more storm-damaged roofs across West Tennessee, North Mississippi, and East Arkansas than he could count if he tried, and for most of the last decade he ran the insurance-restoration side of our company: the hail seasons, the wind claims, the adjuster meetings, the supplements, the Xactimate® files. He was writing estimates in Xactimate® back when it shipped on a disc.
His test for a measurement tool is short and it has not changed in twenty years: does the report open in Xactimate® without redrawing, does the PDF hold up in the claim file, and does the price make sense on a job the carrier is going to scrutinize line by line. He is the reason cost per job and insurance-side readiness carry more than half the weight in our rubric. That is what a restoration shop actually pays for.
Bradley Miller (the blue vest)
Bradley has been selling and building roofs for more than twenty years, and he is still the best kitchen-table closer either of us has ever met. He ran the retail side of the company: the storm-season door knocks, the referral jobs, the homeowner who wants three bids by Friday. He has measured more roofs off a ladder in a Memphis July than any human should, which is exactly why he cares so much about tools that keep him on the ground.
He wants the fastest bid he can get, he does not want to climb if he does not have to, and he flatly refuses to pay a monthly subscription for a tool he uses twice in February. He is the reason speed to bid and no-subscription pricing score high on this site, and why Roofr and GAF QuickMeasure win the retail and speed lanes even though the insurance lane goes elsewhere. Same rubric, different job.
The Roof Dudes of Memphis story
Roof Dudes of Memphis was a roofing company before it was a website. Two friends, two trucks, one hail season that turned into the better part of two decades. We put roofs on houses from Germantown to Southaven to West Memphis, we ran crews through more storm seasons than we can name, and we bought, tested, cursed at, and occasionally loved every measurement product that came through the door with a sales rep attached.
Somewhere along the way we noticed that the tool decision was costing shops real money and nobody was scoring these things the way a roofer actually experiences them: what does one report cost me, how fast is it in my hand, does it work for the insurance half of my book, and what the revision policy actually says. So we did what every roofer threatens to do. We got off the ladder, and we turned Roof Dudes into the review site we wish we had twenty years ago.
Why two of us
Because one roofer's opinion is just an opinion. Every review on this site carries both of our takes, the retail read and the insurance read, and then one combined score. When we disagree, we say so, and we say why. A tool that wins for Bradley's Saturday retail bid can lose for Mark's Tuesday claim file, and pretending otherwise is how contractors end up buying the wrong software.
How the scores work
Five factors, published weights, every tool scored the same way: cost per job with no strings (30%), insurance-side readiness (25%), speed to bid (20%), DIY versus done-for-you (15%), and corrections and support (10%). Every number on the site links to the provider's own pricing or policy page with the date we checked it. Vendor claims are labeled as the vendor's claim. Prices that are not published are labeled as reported or quoted.
We describe our method. We do not ask you to trust us on the basis of who we are or are not. Read how we score for the full rubric and how we handle corrections.
About Memphis
Yes, we are actually from here. Hail season and straight-line wind is why half the roofing work in this town is insurance work, and why the insurance side of a measurement tool matters as much to us as the retail side. The reviews are for contractors everywhere, but the perspective is a Mid-South shop that has done both kinds of work for twenty years and has the sunburns to prove it.
Get in touch
Corrections, a tool we have not scored yet, or a price that changed: contact us. If a number on this site is wrong we fix it and note the change on the page.